This invention relates generally to an improved device to assist in the removal of standard full-sized pick-up truck tailgates, which removably attaches a handle on the inside face of the tailgate. Various reasons present themselves, such as sliding a camper into the bed of a pickup, which require the removal of the tailgate. Two obstacles present themselves for a lone person to remove a tailgate from a pick-up truck. First, the tailgate is heavy and unwieldy as there is no natural handhold on the inside face of the tailgate to stabilize the tailgate to keep the ends level and the bottom edge of the tailgate is relatively sharp so is not a useful handhold. The height of the full-sized tailgate is such that a person's arm cannot reach the bottom of the tailgate inside the bed when attached and there is insufficient space to insert a hand between the bottom of the tailgate and the bed of the pickup. Second, the tailgate is painted so that any contact of the bottom edge of the tailgate with the truck bumper or the ground will result in damage to the paint and resultant rusting of the tailgate.
Although there have been numerous attempts to make it easier to control tailgates, such as J. F. Konchan's U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,301 and R. S. Sunila's U.S. Pat. No. 6,767,173, only B. R. Sovoda's U.S. Pat. No. 5,711,569 address the problem of carrying the tailgate by forming a handle at the bottom of the inside face of the tailgate. Unfortunately, none of these efforts satisfies the need for a removable handle to assist a lone individual to remove and carry a tailgate.
It is an object of this invention to provide an inexpensive, portable handle for tailgates, which is not permanently attached to the tailgate, requires no physical modification to the tailgate, and will attach to modern full-sized pickup tailgates so as to allow their removal and installation by a lone individual.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the drawings, the specification and the claims.